Chapter 6 - What Elena Died Trying To Tell Him
Willa didn't cry.
That frightened her more than tears would have.
She sat in the middle of her destroyed bedroom with her mother's photograph in both hands.
Seventeen.
That was how old she'd been when police called the hit-and-run an accident.
Seventeen when she learned groceries could sit untouched in a refrigerator because the person who bought them wasn't coming home.
Seventeen when every adult said some version of the same sentence.
There was nothing you could have done.
Now a mafia boss stood ten feet away telling her maybe someone had done it deliberately.
“Proof.”
Jared looked at her.
“What?”
“I want proof.”
“I don't have enough.”
“Then don't say things like that.”
“My wife believed—”
“Your wife is dead.”
The words came out crueler than she intended.
Jared flinched.
Willa almost apologized.
Almost.
Instead she stood.
“Everyone in your world keeps believing things after people are dead.”
Her voice shook now.
“Where were all these beliefs when my mother was alive?”
Jared took the blow without defending himself.
Miles spoke quietly.
“Elena tried.”
Willa turned.
“What?”
“She spent nearly two years investigating Sebastian.”
“Why?”
Miles looked at Jared.
Jared answered.
“Because my father was dying, and Elena didn't want me inheriting an empire built on unfinished crimes.”
“Your father?”
“Dominic Kensington.”
Willa knew that name too.
Not as a person.
As a rumor.
He'd died four years ago.
“Did you know?”
“No.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No.”
Jared's honesty stopped her.
“I expect you to believe evidence.”
He took out his phone.
“I have Elena's files stored offline. You can see everything.”
“Tonight?”
“Yes.”
“All of it?”
“Yes.”
Miles hesitated.
“Jared.”
“All of it.”
That decision changed something.
Not trust.
Not yet.
But perhaps the possibility of it.
They returned to Manhattan before dawn.
Roman was stronger.
Not healthy.
But stronger.
He drank half a bowl of water after Willa sat beside him.
Then Jared opened Elena's files.
Hundreds of documents.
Photographs.
Financial records.
Names.
Willa felt sick scrolling through them.
A photograph of Sebastian outside a warehouse.
Another beside Brendan.
Rebecca Thornton's name appeared in a scanned witness report.
Willa's fingers trembled.
She read.
Her mother had been driving home from an evening class when she saw a man dragged from a vehicle behind a closed restaurant.
She called police.
By the time officers arrived, everyone was gone.
A detective interviewed her two days later.
Then the report disappeared.
Six weeks afterward, Rebecca Thornton was killed crossing an intersection.
Willa stared at the screen.
“Who was the murdered man?”
Jared clicked another file.
“Anthony Bell.”
“Why was he killed?”
“He was an accountant.”
“For your father?”
“For Sebastian.”
“What did he know?”
“Where money was being diverted.”
Miles leaned over.
“Sebastian was stealing long before Elena died.”
Jared nodded.
“And Anthony discovered it.”
Willa's stomach tightened.
“So Sebastian killed him.”
“We believe so.”
“And my mother saw him.”
“Yes.”
“And Brendan?”
Jared opened another image.
Brendan Holt.
Age twenty-four.
Former Marine.
Private security contractor.
Employment records linked him to a shell company controlled by Sebastian.
Willa whispered, “He met me on purpose.”
The thought hurt differently than everything else.
Coffee.
Flowers.
The first smile.
He hadn't found her.
He'd been sent.
Jared's face hardened.
“To watch you.”
“For how long?”
“Probably until Sebastian felt certain your mother hadn't left evidence with you.”
Willa laughed weakly.
“He stayed three years.”
Miles looked troubled.
“Maybe his orders changed.”
Willa thought of Brendan's obsession with her belongings.
He'd searched her drawers.
Read old letters.
Destroyed a box of her mother's things during an argument.
She had believed jealousy caused it.
“What if he was looking for something?”
Jared leaned forward.
“What did your mother leave you?”
“Nothing important.”
“Think.”
“A necklace. Some books. Her sewing box.”
“Documents?”
“No.”
“Keys?”
Willa stopped.
Jared noticed.
“What?”
She stood abruptly.
“My mother's key ring.”
“Where is it?”
“I kept one key.”
“What does it open?”
“I don't know.”
She hurried toward her bag.
Inside her wallet, behind an old photograph, sat a tiny brass key she'd carried for thirteen years.
Her mother had worn it on the same ring as her house keys.
No label.
No explanation.
Brendan had once asked about it.
She suddenly remembered.
Why keep junk?
Throw it away.
She hadn't.
Jared took a photograph but didn't touch the key.
“Elena mentioned a deposit box.”
Willa stared.
“Where?”
“That's the problem.”
“She didn't know.”
Miles stood.
“We can trace Rebecca's banking history.”
Before Jared answered, his phone rang.
Unknown number.
Everyone froze.
Jared answered on speaker.
No one spoke.
Then Brendan laughed softly.
“Willa.”
Her blood turned cold.
Jared's voice was calm.
“Brendan.”
“Oh.”
A pause.
“So she found a new guard dog.”
Roman growled from the rug.
Brendan heard it.
“How's Roman?”
Jared's face changed.
Willa noticed.
“You know the dog,” she said.
Brendan laughed again.
“I know exactly why he stopped eating.”
Jared stepped closer to the phone.
“Tell me.”
“No.”
“Then why call?”
“To warn Willa.”
Her fingers tightened.
“About what?”
“Jared Kensington isn't saving you.”
“I didn't ask him to.”
“Good.”
Brendan's voice softened into the tone she hated most.
The tender voice.
The one that always arrived before cruelty.
“Because Elena Kensington learned the truth too.”
Jared became perfectly still.
“What truth?”
Brendan answered.
“That the man who ordered Rebecca Thornton's death wasn't Sebastian Vale.”
Willa stopped breathing.
“Who was it?”
A long silence.
Then Brendan whispered:
May you like
“Jared's father.”
The line disconnected.
